If you were to breed a potential "American Idol" winner in a lab, you could not do better than Archuleta, the 17-year-old kid from Utah who effectively ended the competition two weeks ago with his performance of John Lennon's "Imagine."

Archuleta ticks every possible demographic box for the tween girls and grandmothers who are the two dominant "Idol" voting blocs. He's cute but non-threatening, polite and terribly sincere. Think back to previous seasons and how long contestants like one-note crooner John Stevens IV or tone-deaf Sanjaya Malakar lasted, solely for ticking those same boxes.

Now imagine if one of them were a terrific singer -- which Archuleta most certainly is.

No, young David's going to run away with this thing, and it's not going to be close. DialIdol.com, the website that purports to predict who's going home by using special software to measure the busy signal during the voting period, has had every other contestant within its margin of error for going home every single week of the semi-finals, but Archuleta's always been safe.

In various polls asking viewers to pick their favorite contestant, Archuleta usually picks up more votes than the other contestants combined. YouTube clips of his "Imagine" performance have drawn more than a million viewers combined, easily outstripping the hit total for any other contestant. Even as Simon was complaining about last week's mediocre (by Archuleta standards) performance, he was admitting David is a lock for final two.

Really, the only way Archuleta doesn't go all the way is if he has a recurrence of the vocal paralysis that affected him when he was younger. If his voice stays healthy, he wins, and everybody knows it.

So what do the "Idol" producers do about it? And do they have to do anything at all?

For the entire run of the series, they've refused to release weekly vote totals in order to keep fans thinking their favorite singer had a chance to win. If, as they've claimed, Clay Aiken had a huge lead in voting every week of season two but the finals (when the phone banks were overwhelmed and Ruben Studdard won in a fluky squeaker), would people who didn't like Clay have kept tuning in for the seemingly inevitable coronation?

Maybe. After all, Americans love a front-runner almost as much as we love rooting for the underdog. Other "Idol" seasons have had probable winners without the ratings suffering.

So should the "Idol" producers embrace the inevitable or try to deny it? Some thoughts on each scenario:

Deny it

In some other seasons when the producers had a pretty good idea who would win from the starting gate, they were able to generate drama along the way.

In season four, even though Carrie Underwood's audition had been featured in practically every commercial, even though Simon predicted in the semi-finals that she would not only win but outsell all the previous winners combined, they were able to find a plausible stalking horse in rocker Bo Bice.

Where Carrie was often treated like an afterthought for much of the finals -- the judges, even when praising her vocals, always dinged her for predictability and a lack of stage presence -- Bo became the dominant narrative: Can an authentic rocker succeed on "American Idol"? Why was Bo struggling with the theme nights? Bo looks ready to quit! Bo is back! Bo sings a cappella and blows the roof off the joint! Etc. Carrie's win was still unsurprising, but at least Bo kept things interesting.

If, as has later been claimed, the producers knew all along that Taylor Hicks was dominating the season five vote, then they did an effective job of making it look like Chris Daughtry was going to win, which then made his fourth-place elimination a shocker.

Even though Archuleta seems guaranteed to run away with this season, this is probably the deepest pool of singers the show has ever had in the top 12, and there's a diverse group of options for the role of Archuleta's Foil.

Carly Smithson and Michael Johns both have tons of professional singing experience, though Carly always seems nervous and Michael didn't exactly break a sweat with his semi-finals performances. David Cook's alt-rock version of Lionel Richie's "Hello" was the second-most praised number of the semis after Archuleta's "Imagine," and it would once again allow the producers to try the "Can a rocker win 'Idol'?" storyline. Brooke White and Jason Castro both have a singer-songwriter coffeehouse vibe that's new to the franchise, and Castro in some ways is even more "High School Musical"-ready than Archuleta.

If the producers and judges can put enough muscle behind one of these people -- give them the pimp spot (the last performance of the night) as often as possible, dress up their performances with laser-light shows and other gimmicks, have Randy and Paula genuflect after each performance -- and leave Archuleta alone, they might be able to fool people, even a little bit.

Embrace it

This, to me, seems like the more entertaining option. We've been there, done that with fake foils in the past, and it could be revelatory to see the normally Kremlin-like "Idol" become as transparent as possible for a season. Among the options:

-Start running ads pushing the awesome power of the Archuleta phenomenon: "Can anyone defeat him?" or "Look on his works, ye mighty, and despair!"

-Give him the pimp spot every single week, along with a full orchestra, lasers, etc.

-Excuse him from the elimination show every week, since there's no chance he might even hit center stage. Maybe even turn his absence into a running feature: "Where in the World is David Archuleta?" ("Hey, guys, I'm surfing off Imperial Beach!" or "I just saw 'There Will Be Blood,' and I promise not to drink anyone's milk shake!")

-Let him skip the finals altogether. Just advance him directly to the final week of the competition, and have Ryan Seacrest start off each show by asking, "Which one of these contestants will get a shot to lose to David Archuleta?"

Just have fun with it. There's even a way to embrace and deny the inevitability at the same time: Start running promos comparing Archuleta to the New England Patriots. At one point, their championship seemed inevitable, too. Just keep in mind that none of the other "Idol" finalists seem capable of beating Archuleta up the way the Giants beat up Tom Brady -- except maybe Amanda Overmyer.

"American Idol" (Tonight at 8 on Channel 5) The finals begin as the top 12 contestants sing songs from the Beatles' catalog.

Alan Sepinwall may be reached at asepinwall@starledger.com, or by writing him at 1 Star-Ledger Plaza, Newark, N.J. 07102-1200.